


once and again

by Cronomon



Category: Love Live! Sunshine!!
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-26
Updated: 2017-01-26
Packaged: 2018-09-20 00:10:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9466790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cronomon/pseuds/Cronomon
Summary: Childhood crushes are hard to get over.





	

Chika remembers this one time, when she was eight and Kanan was nine, when they’d been running down the streets playing tag or something. They’d done that a lot, back then. Played tag, or hide-and-seek, or went swimming in the ocean or rolling down hills. This time, though, this one time she remembers, she’d tripped on something, and fallen, and scraped her knee.

She remembers a gaping hole in her leg, spilling out bucketloads of blood. Kanan always tells her it wasn’t actually that bad, but still, it’d felt like it.

Anyway, she’d fallen, and her leg had been bleeding, and Chika remembers that she couldn’t stop crying because the fall had hurt, and the scrape had hurt, and the dirt and dust that had gotten in the wound had hurt. Also, it was really hot, and it’d made the tears on her face dry extra quickly, which felt clammy and gross, so she’d cried some more.

But then Kanan was there. She’d knelt down right next to Chika and washed off the scrape with the water bottle she always carried around. Then she’d put a bandage on it, because she also always carried those around, apparently. And after that, she’d hugged Chika, rubbing slow circles on her back until Chika’s wails turned into whimpers, and the pain had dulled a bit.

She’d given Chika a piggy-back home, and then all the way up the stairs to her room, and she’d stayed with Chika until Shima and Mito came home from their summer activities or hanging out with their friends or whatever it was they’d been doing. Kanan didn’t leave until the sun was setting and she was positive that Chika would be okay, not hurting, not lonely, not anything.

Man, Kanan sure had spoiled her back then.

It feels a little bit the same now.

Chika remembers that time because this time seems awfully similar to it, just without the nonstop crying.

“It’s fine not to rush through it,” Kanan is saying as she dabs at the wound with a damp tissue (and of course Kanan is still always so prepared, even after all these years.) She glances up briefly, offers a quick smile. “Just go at your own pace.”

Chika scrunches up her face, but it’s more because she’s trying to ignore the sting of her scrape than anything else. “I know,” she mutters. She doesn’t really mean to avoid Kanan’s eyes, but it kind of ends up that way, and she hopes Kanan doesn’t take it personally.

She’s glad Kanan doesn’t say any of the _I told you so_ stuff. Chika already knows running down the stairs four steps at a time is dumb.

(But Yō made it look so easy, like she does with everything, and Chika just didn’t want to be left behind again)

Although, look where that had gotten her.

The rest of the group had gone on without them, reassured by Kanan’s promise that they would catch up soon. It’s a little lame to be held up by a scrape, but Chika knows better than to try to argue with Kanan when she’s concerned about something.

“Bandage, too?” Chika’s eyebrows shoot up when she sees Kanan pull one out from her pocket. “Wait— you _still_ carry those around with you all the time?”

“Never know when you might need them,” Kanan responds. She peels the wrapping off with the ease of one who has done so hundreds of times before. “Guess it’s a habit from being friends with you.”

“Wow, okay, rude. I’m not _that_ bad.”

Kanan arches an eyebrow. Chika sticks out her tongue in retaliation and tries not to feel too pleased when Kanan stifles a laugh.

“You aren’t,” she admits. Chika allows herself a grin at that.

Kanan finishes tending to her knee, and she half expects to be told to get up so they can hurry over to where the others are. Instead, Kanan sits down next to her, stretches her arms and offers her a water bottle.

Ah, ever reliable.

Chika kind of gets now why her mother always told her to try to learn from that cool big sis who lives on Awashima Island.

“I guess I still have a long way to go,” she reflects out loud, and she can feel Kanan stiffen beside her.

“For what?”

Chika tries to shrug it off. “Until I can catch up to you.” She means for it to sound casual, but she’s not sure how successful she is. “Uh, well, you know. As someone to look up to. Like a real leader.”

She can tell Kanan’s looking at her, but she doesn’t feel like seeing what kind of face she’s making, so instead she decides to study this one really interesting scuff on her shoe.

She doesn’t know why she added that last part. It sounds kind of self-deprecating, even if it’s not entirely untrue. Still, the last thing she wants is for Kanan to overreact and get the others involved or something.

She startles a bit when she feels a hand curl over her own, gently, almost tentatively. Then, as though Kanan changed her mind, the hand disappears, but before Chika can feel disappointed about it there’s suddenly a heavy weight on her head, pushing her down and messing up her hair.

“Ow! Hey, come on, what’s that for?” The bite of her words melts into laughter as she tries to lean away and shove at Kanan at the same time.

“No leader of mine is going to sit here and talk like she’s someone not worth following.” Kanan’s words are more blunt than she’d expected, and Chika freezes, swallowing hard.

Right, there it is. That look Kanan is giving her. Not pitying or patronizing — something firmer, more confident. Affectionate. Faithful.

That same look she’d given Chika years ago, when she’d told her how brave she was for putting up with such an injury, how strong she was for recovering so quickly.

“Don’t sell yourself short, Chika. You surpassed me a long time ago.” Kanan smiles. It’s brilliant, radiant, like the stars they spent so much time watching together when they were kids, sprawled out on the beach, sticky from salt and sand. “I’m really proud of you,” she says.

Yeah. It’s that look that Chika had wanted to avoid.

Her heart’s thumping way too loudly all of a sudden, and her face feels like it’s burning. It’s difficult to breathe. She might as well be dying.

This whole thing is all too familiar.

 _Ah_ , Chika thinks to herself, weakly, in resignation. _Guess I’m not over it after all._


End file.
